1. Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a signal transfer circuit and an operating method thereof for transferring a signal through a plurality of signal transmission lines.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, as technology has developed, the semiconductor memory device industry has been challenged to increase operating speed and reduce power consumption.
Semiconductor memory devices output or receive numerous bits of data. For example, 16, 32, or 64 bits of data may be transferred simultaneously to improve memory device and system performance. In order to output multiple bits of data simultaneously, a circuit including a data output buffer and a data transmission line corresponding to each output bit is needed.
When data is transferred in a semiconductor memory device, a signal having a full swing between a power supply voltage and a ground voltage is transferred through a data transmission line. Since the semiconductor memory device includes a large number of data transmission lines, current consumption may increase when the data is transferred through the data transmission lines. As the size of a semiconductor memory device increases, the number of data transmission lines increases. Since the data transmission lines are disposed in a peripheral region of the semiconductor memory device, line loading elements are increased. Furthermore, since data having a full swing is transferred through the data transmission lines, the line loading elements are further increased. The line loading elements of the data transmission line may block high speed transfer operations of data and increase current consumption when data is transferred through a data transmission line.